Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo

Biography

Ashlee Cunsolo is a passionate researcher and environmental advocate, working with research and policy to make a difference in how we live with and in this world. As a community-engaged social science and health researcher working at the intersection of place, culture, health, and environment, she has a particular interest in the social, environmental, and cultural determinants of Indigenous health, intercultural learning and dialogue, capacity development, environmental ethics, and the social justice implications of social, environmental, and health inequality.

For the past 10 years, she has been working with Indigenous communities and leaders across Canada on a variety of community-led and community-identified research initiatives, ranging from climate change impacts on physical and mental health, cultural reclamation and intergenerational knowledge transmission, suicide reduction and prevention, land-based education and healing programs, environmental grief and mourning, and Indigenization of higher education.

Before becoming the Director of the Labrador Institute of Memorial University, Ashlee was the Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Healthy Communities and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Nursing and Indigenous Studies at Cape Breton University in Unama’ki/ Cape Breton. Ashlee completed a postdoc with the Climate Change Adaptation Research Group at McGill University, and her PhD at the University of Guelph.

In 2014, she released a documentary film, collaboratively produced with the five Inuit communities in Nunatsiavut, Labrador, about the impacts of climate change on Inuit culture, livelihoods, and wellbeing (www.lamentfortheland.ca).

Boards and Committees/ Conseils et comités

Royal Society of Canada College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists; Royal Society of Canada Atlantic Board; Nature Canada 75 Women for Nature; Research Management Committee, MEOPAR NCE; former Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Determinants of Healthy Communities

Selected Publications/ Publications sélectionnées

Cunsolo, A. and Ellis, N. (2018). Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss. Nature Climate Change (invited Perspective piece), 8: 275-281.

Jones, J., Cunsolo A., and Harper, S. (2018). Who is Research Serving? A Systematic Realist Review of Circumpolar Environment-related Indigenous Health Literature. PLoS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0196090

Day, L, Cunsolo, A. ,Castledn, H., Martin, D., Hart, C., Anaviapik-Soucie, T., Russel, G., Paul, C., Dewey, C., Harper, S. (2018). The expanding digital media landscape of qualitative and decolonizing research: Examining collaborative podcasting as a research method.  Material Cultures, 7(1): 203-228.n http://www.mediatropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/issue/view/1945/showToc.

Ford, J., Cameron, L., Rubis, J., Nakashima, D., Maillet, M., Cunsolo Willox, A. (2016). Indigenous-focused content in the IPCC: The Case of WGII. Nature Climate Change, 6(4), 349-353.